We all have roles to play. Mine is to be the public dick. It's not a glamorous role but I take it seriously. Life being what it is, some will smile, others will frown ...

Before you go too far, there is a vast difference between a short wheel base race (or raceable) bike and a touring bike. One is built for fast riding and performance while the other is made for carrying lots of stuff all day with maximum stability…a different kind of “performance”. I’ve taken a loaded short wheel base bike down a high speed hill and dreaded it. The bike developed shimmies and was difficult to control. I’ve also taken a loaded touring down many more hills at far higher rates of speed without the drama.

There is also the heel clipping problem when you put panniers on a rack on a short bike.

Is it? Would adding rack mounts to a bike really turn off people or would people who don’t want to use them just not use them? They put the rack mounts on the aluminum version which doesn’t seem to turn people off all that much.

I quite doubt it.

Cannondale makes all kind of guesses on what riders would buy. Some of those guesses worked out, others didn’t.

Yes, the rack holes mires the smooth “aero” look. But, even that aero look is just a fashion statement. Weekend warriors don’t go fast enough to benefit from the oval shape headtube and seatpost. I for one am in a hurry to buy a 2024 Synapse which there’re still some left on bike shop floors. That’s the last year the Synapse has round seat tubes like all traditional bikes. That means I can later upgrade or downgrade it for my own purpose.

Yes, I wish it has rack mounts. But I now know there’re ways around it. It’s not a deal breaker. I like the way the Synapse rides. That’s really what matters.

I’m guessing you’re not familiar with the Cannondale line? The Synapse isn’t a “race bike”. It’s an “endurance” bike, fast and efficient to do centuries with minimum effort. But not counting seconds at the finish line or duking it out on the sprint finish. Its geometry is pretty relax, quite friendly for touring as long as one doesn’t carry a huge load of cr*p!

Moreover, if you’re a backpacker, especially during the last 10 years, you would know camping gear had shed a huge amount of their weight. You can camp in comfort without carrying 50lb of gear any more. (I backpacked for a few decades. But recently, when I needed to replace my threadbare tent, I was shocked at how much lighter tents had became! I went a little overboard and replaced a few other items. Now, my backpack weights barely 20lbs even with a few leftover heavy itesm from the old days)

Last but not least, I’m considerably below average in weight. Me and my camping gear together will only be about average weight of rider of my size, well within the handling envelop of any non-racing bikes.

I’m very familiar with Cannondales. I’ve had 5 of them…three touring bikes, a tandem, and even a Synapse.

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The Synapse was an art project bike that I regret giving away. I really liked the ride.

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I’ll agree that the Synapse isn’t a race bike but it is a sportier, shorter wheelbase bike than the touring bikes.

As you can see, I’m not unfamiliar with touring. Yes, equipment is lighter than it used to be but how light depends on a bunch of factors. I’ve also noticed a lot of people report loads without taking into account food and water. They still have to be carried.

I’ve toured with a sport’s bike. My current “touring bike” is a standard “sport” bike. Frankly, the new “endurance” bikes are so much more relaxed than the earlier versions of “century/club ride bikes” of 10 years ago.

Precisely! Lots of factors. One of which would be that I’m not touring in the middle of nowhere. So I don’t have to carry the kitchen sink!

Why? (Carry food and water for any substantial distance?)

We’re talking about ROAD touring. Not mountain bike touring of the Continental Divide trail!

There will be water and grocery stores near, if not at, the campground. Even if I have to carry 5 lbs of dinner and breakfast ingredient for 2 miles, I wouldn’t be going at mark 2 speed during that last part of the day.

My current “touring bike”:

"Unloaded"(empty rack): ~5% of riding
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(“Loaded”): ~10% of riding (tent on handlebar, sleeping bag on 1 side of panier, no food yet, just got out from the airport)
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Totally “naked” (no rack no nothing!): 80-90%
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Truth be told, I don’t like how the old “touring bike” rides when not carrying loads. Long chain-stays and lax front center, they tend to ride about as fun as riding a couch. Given this will be a bike that only goes “touring” a couple weekends or at most 1 week, it’s overkill to spec for loaded touring. Much better to just fit the load for what the bike could handle instead.

My upcoming tour is on ROADS and a paved trail. Day 3 will take me to a state park for two days that is over 30 miles from the nearest food source. I’ll have to tote everything I need. And I’ll need to have a water filter. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to pack food for that distance (or longer).

Well, that’s the kind of middle-of-nowhere tour I don’t do. As much as I enjoy combining cycling with camping, I draw a line when it turns me into a pack mule.

That’s time to ride a 4 wheel vehicle with a motor.

What's your guess for why Cannondale omitted rack mounting points on the carbon frame in question, if's not simply a marketing choice? Many carbon frames do have such points, so it's not because carbon frames are inherently incapable of withstanding touring loads.

Doesn't sawing something off to save some weight have any appeal anymore?

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Just answering the question.

And you don't always have to be in the middle of nowhere. There is a route that I sometimes do from my house in Philly. It's about 46 miles. The last possible place to get supplies is at mile 30. And if you don't bring enough for more than one day, a round trip ride to resupply is not short or easy.

I’m not necessarily touring in the middle of nowhere but I have found over many years of touring that there are places where you have to carry the kitchen sink. The midwest US has vast distances between towns and some of those “towns” only exist in name only.


Not necessarily. Those towns that exist in name only used to have grocery stores but many of them have closed because a HelMart opened 60 miles down the road. If I don’t carry food, I won’t eat. Not every campground has a store.

That’s not been my experience. The black touring bike in my post is my most used bike. It’s zippy enough. The white touring bike handles a load better than any other touring bike I’ve ever used. Even when I’ve stripped the load down as I did towards the end of my last tour, it handled well.

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Now you’re getting me curious! Where is that?

I have no interest in doing multi-week long distance touring. So, I won’t bother touring in those vast emptiness of the midwest. (Grew up in the Midwest, have zero interest in going back, certainly not by bike).

For me, the whole point of bike touring is to be intimate with the towns, villages, and its people. Riding through no man’s land kind of defeats the purpose. I’d rather cover those empty distances by car or bus or train…

I get where you’re coming from. But it’s not the kind of touring I’d like to do.

Different job, different bike. [/size]

That’s not the only place I’ve toured. I’ve ridden a bike in every state but Alaska. The same difficulty of food holds in Wisconsin as well as New York state. There’s a whole lot of space between towns all over the nation. Here’s three days of travel on one of my tours…Johnson City, NY to Gibson, PA (50 miles) and Gibson, PA to Honesdale, PA (25 miles) and Honesdale to Port Jervis, NJ (69 miles). A total of 144 miles. There were no towns large enough to support a grocery store over those 3 days of travel. I usually carry 3 days of food just to be sure and I think (can say for sure) that I continued on from Port Jervis to Stroudsburg (another 40 miles) before I found a grocery store.

This is not a one off. I’ve had the same occur everywhere across the nation. I started carrying 3 days of food in 2003 and have continued to do that over 7 multi week tours since.

Well, I’m afraid you’re still missing my point. Read my first post (which I elaborated again just above)

If the villages are too small to have a grocery store, there’s probably not much worth stopping. And if a full day’s riding pass through only such villages, it wouldn’t be where I would want to tour.

(Just had a conversation with a riding buddy of mine who is about to retire. It took about 90 seconds for both of us to reach the conclusion for her usage: get a gravel bike!)

There’re many ways people tour. Yours isn’t the kind I will do. (I mean, I appreciate you raised the issue of loaded stability. But it really doesn’t apply in this case. “3 days of food”? I’ll rent a car for that stretch!)

My touring days are way in my past, but the idea that you can routinely be 3 days away from food in the midwest is rather odd. It would take some special routing to travel 150-300 miles and not encounter food.

Have you toured in the last 20 to 30 years? HelMart has hollowed out the country.

Regardless, the idea that one would routinely bike 3 days (150-300 miles) in the midwest without encountering a place that sells food is farfetched.

While carbon construction is not as tolerant of high point loads as steel, it can be done. Many sailboats have carbon fiber masts with stays and shrouds attached. Those attachments experience loads in the neighborhood of thousands of pounds. They do this by having special, local layup schedules, backing plates, metal or other high strength inserts. So it can be done. Whether it is done with carbon bicycle components is an open question.

The “Midwest” is a large area, stretching from the Canadian border to the Mexican border and from the Mississippi to the Rockies. It could even be generously stretch up the Ohio River Valley. There are lots of place where you can drive for more than 300 miles without finding food. I’m not talking about convenience stores but places where you can get food to actually cook.

Ummm ... no. The midwest does not extend to Mexico nor to the Rockies.

You’re really stretching your own version of “touring” far, far beyond what this thread was about.

Why would anyone choose purposely to bike tour in places without civilization aside, insisting on carrying 3 days supply of “food to actually cook” really takes the cake!

Why must you “actually cook”? Even in the most desolate part of the country, you can most likely grab something simple along the way, which you can just eat as is, or heat up later at your camp… Sure, if there’s a camp store, or better yet, a farmer’s market near the campground, by all means go all out and cook a gourmet fest! But do you HAVE TO cook each and every day?

I’m a Warmshower host. I hosted streams of riders riding across the state, cross country, even a few around the world. Majority of them don’t “actually cook”, even though I offered them a full kitchen! Most just heat up a pot of water, dunk some pasta/rice/noodle plus whatever meat or vegetables they happen to find as they rode by. Bread or cereal and coffee for breakfast.

Basically, they get whatever they can heat up quickly & easily. Some simply grab something in a local dinner they passed by. Homy, healthy and filling food and minimum fuss. And before you start on dietary requirements, my guests spread over the entire spectrum. There were vegetarians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus. All of them managed to find food that fits with their health or religious requirements without “actually cook”.

Oh by the way, they also come through in all kinds of bikes and bags too. Some strap their tents and sleeping bags on their road bike frame directly. One didn’t even bother with tent, just a waterproof bivy sack. Of course there were those on standard touring setup. But also some with really creative ways of packing too. For the most part, very few bother with both front and rear racks any more. Most just use one, eithe front rack only, or rear rack alone.

I’m not going to bother with a heavy duty “touring bike” for a week’s worth of touring when so many can manage months on the road without. There’re more than one way to bike tour. Your way isn’t the only way.

People have different reasons for doing what they do. Some do it for an experience and just for the sake of an adventure. Others just feel like getting away from it all for a few days and being surrounded only by nature and cooking their food on a fire or a stove and using a water filter to get their water from lakes and rivers. There is really nothing wrong with that.

Perhaps not officially but I dare you to show how the plains of Colorado and Wyoming are different than the plains of Nebraska and South Dakota. Or how you can see a stark dividing line between Oklahoma and Texas at the Kansas border. Or how Arkansas changes dramatically at the Missouri border. There might be a sign saying that there is a boundary there but climate, terrain, and biome don’t recognize artificial boundaries.

Convenience stores don’t generally carry much more than chips and snacks. Yes, I use them during the day when I can find them but relying on them for meals is a fool’s errand. I also have more than 10,000 miles of touring experience under my belt and I have yet to see a “farmer’s market” near any campground I’ve ever stayed at. Very few campgrounds…and no public ones…have “camp stores” that carry much more than snacks.

Got news for you…that’s “actual cooking”. You don’t just “dunk” pasta or rice and start eating. And my morning routine is similar because the last thing I want to do of a morning is wash dishes before breaking camp.

I do something similarly in camp but I have to get the food from somewhere. Often that means getting it 1 to 3 days before at a store where I can get those items because I’ve not found a lot of places to just “grab something” along the way. The route I linked to certainly didn’t have any places to just “grab something” in roughly 150 miles and the 3 campgrounds I stayed at had no stores, even though they were all commercial campgrounds.


I’ve toured just about any way you wish to describe short of wear a backpack. I’ve used trailers. I’ve used panniers on the rear only. I’ve used panniers on the front only. I’ve use bikepacking bags. Each has their strengths and shortcomings. For road touring, I’ve found 4 bags to be simple, effective, and efficient. For off-road touring…where there really aren’t any stores…bikepacking bags work well to keep the gear attached to the bike. They really suck when it comes to packing and the bags tend to put the weight of the gear high up on the bike which drastically effects handling.

As to the way to tour, no, my way isn’t the only way. But neither is yours. I can…and have…taken a bike along on a car to explore places. It’s pleasant in its own way. I also enjoy expedition style touring. The part of the trip that you would skip can hold a lot of experiences that you are missing from the front seat of a car.